A Mask Hides Nothing
by YoungFool
Summary: Ty Lee and Mai give Azula one final visit in prison. Angst.


**A Mask Hides Nothing**

Her eyes were half closed, in part to both disappointment and drowsiness, and settled their gaze on the cold stone floor beneath her feet. The chilly wall of the prison cell hosted the fallen princess' back, and her body slumped over itself with her arms resting lifelessly upon her knees. Her usually well done hair, which Azula would not allow to appear less than perfect just days ago, was sticky with sweat and hung helplessly in a mess. Her face, which was elegantly beautiful, was now showing dried streaks of tears and an utter lack of fight.

Essentially, she was a broken spirit.

The prison was cold, and the uninviting air smelled atrociously of sweat and must. Azula hated this. She needed to be clean, but was told she would only be allowed one bath a week. The bulk of her time was spent in agony over what had become of her.

She sat deep in thought, watching a little insect crawl around just inches from her feet. She did not fear the pitiful little creature; it feared her, the prodigious princess of the Fire Nation. That was the way it was, the way it should be. Everyone was an insect, she ruled them all, and they obliged to her without a moment's hesitation. She was snapped out of a daze when she a metallic clank from a cell that seemed miles away and she cringed at her fate.

Her cell was isolated from the other prisoners and was offered as much security as could be provided. No one had come to her in the five days she had spent here, and it quickly dawned on her than nobody would, that nobody _should_. She didn't need anyone's pity, she had herself, and that was all she needed. A single tear fell from a half closed eye and met the cold, tiled floor just an inch from the insect that had chosen to crawl closer to her. It scurried away in fear, and Azula had wished at the moment that her brother, now the Fire Lord, was the insect.

A minute passed, slow as well as uneventful, and Azula felt her stomach ache with emptiness. She did not even consider looking at the untouched trays of food that lay a small distance in front of her. Her mind throbbed with pain, with sorrow, with loneliness. She dropped her head as well as her gaze, and hoped to fall into a slumber that would last forever. That was the only escape she could find in this ill place; sleep. But that eluded her as often as company.

It was then that the princess heard a click outside the door that trapped her. Her eyes shot up in anticipation, but then dropped slowly as she figured it was likely just a guard bringing her the midday meal. Azula never fought them, never considered it. The Avatar decided against revoking the princess of her bending abilities, but even now she was too weak and limp to muster a threatening heap of flame. Her arms were free but her waist and ankles were heavily shackled.

The door slowly opened, permitting a dull ray of light to slightly brighten the dark room. Azula's eyes burned at the sensation because her eyes made a habit of adjusting to the dark, and she jerked her head away and squinted her eyes. A pair of bodies entered the room and closed the door behind them. Azula did not look up; she couldn't bear the sight of another guard. One of the figures let out a light, nearly inaudible whimper. A slow, frozen minute escaped as nothing moved and nothing could be heard.

"You look awful," said a cold, feminine voice, breaking the uninviting silence. It sounded as if a glass jar had shattered against rusting metal.

Azula's gaze instantly shot up as she recognized the voice. Her eyes met a disgusted look on Mai's face and she held back a gasp from her dried mouth. Then, turning her gaze to the assassin's left, the princess caught sight of Ty Lee's presence, and Azula noticed that the acrobat was uneasy. Mai wore simple Earth Kingdom robes while Ty Lee wore a uniform that Azula recognized as the one the warriors whom the three of them attacked some time ago had donned. She did not wear the required face paint, however, and Azula found grief in that detail.

"H-Hey, Azula," Ty Lee's voice came low, sounding uncertain. She flashed Azula a weak, soft smile as Azula glared at her. The prisoner said nothing, but held an angered, betrayed look on her face. Ty Lee winced slightly as she noticed Azula's aura turn to a shade of very dark red, nearly black.

"You know, you probably deserve everything you're getting here," Mai commented calmly as she looked about the room with her steely amber eyes. She saw the dirty, grimy floor, sensed the unpleasant odor that hung in the air, and even cast a look upon the untouched food Azula was to consume. She dismissed the thoughts within a second, and turned her look to the broken, wasted shell she had once seen as a friend.

Azula sensed the hostility and placed upon her face a mask. She held a hard, stern look on her face that refused to twitch. She narrowed her eyes to daggers and forced her mouth into a deep scowl. She would use this mask, free of even the smallest movements, to conceal everything.

Everything.

The princess looked between the two with enough rage to make her eyes burned. She noticed that Ty Lee often broke the contact they held with their eyes, and saw the bubbly girl fidget and nervously play with her fingers. Mai, however, did not as much as twitch, and collectedly held her hands together behind her back.

_Leave_, Azula thought. She wanted badly to form those words into an audible command, but no words escaped her closed lips, nor did her mouth open. She did, however, sit straight up, trying hard to hold her head upright rather than letting it hang to one side.

"You probably never thought you would end up in a place like this, did you?" Mai continued. She was met with nothing other than a frozen death glare from the princess' mask. The assassin looked to her left and saw Ty Lee trying to give Azula a defiant look, but sensed a drop of pity within her friend's gaze. Mai sighed lightly. "Neither did we."

Azula continued to glare at Mai, expecting more, but the tall, thin girl said no more. Mai saw nothing but that mask again; cold and dismissive. The princess decided to shift her eyes to meet Ty Lee's, and wordlessly dared her to speak something, anything.

Ty Lee recognized the gesture and tried to formulate a response. "I don't think it was nice…the way you treated us," the acrobat let out in a low voice. "You just yelled at us when we didn't do something the right way, but you never said anything nice when we did do stuff the right way. We tried to be your friends, Azula, but you didn't want us to," Ty Lee lowered her gaze and looked down after meeting Azula's hard, golden eyes alight with fury. The princess's scowl made the acrobat uneasy and nervous even in her broken condition.

Azula noticeably cocked an eyebrow after Ty Lee ceased speaking, and Mai expected a response as she noticed the movement. But again, the hard, unrelenting mask covered Azula's face after her eyebrow fell back into place and her face froze once more.

The reply never came.

"The good majority of people, especially the citizens of the Earth Kingdom, are calling for your head," Mai initiated once more, her stern eyes staring directly into those of the princess' without any hint of nervousness. "Personally, I don't care. And I'm not sure what will happen."

But the mask hid everything. Mai felt a twinge of annoyance that she could not stimulate a reaction, but did nothing to make her dilemma noticeable.

"But I don't think your brother wants to execute you," Ty Lee sighed, visibly unattached. "He did say he's going to try to create a new era for the Fire Nation, one that will be free of conflict, pain, and struggle." As she finished with the smallest of smiles, she looked again at Azula, but did not shy away from the furious mask this time. The acrobat noticed that nothing of the princess was changing, not even her gaze or her aura.

"I think Zuko will show you mercy, too," Mai continued nonchalantly. "But you have done a lot of malicious things and created scars in some villages and families that will never heal. Don't you think maybe you deserve less than you will probably get?"

Azula's gaze remained intact, still frozen into that hard, steely mask. She said nothing, but her eyes flashed with an anger she had met only scarcely before. She inwardly wished to tear the thin girl to shreds, but dismissed the thought.

"Will you say something, Azula?" Ty Lee asked, her smile disappearing and her aura's pinkness gradually shimmering down. "Anything?"

Ty Lee was met with nothing but an unmoving mask that was loyal to keeping the princess' emotions concealed. Frozen seconds snaked away without anything disturbing the calmed silence, and Ty Lee sighed in defeat and turned her head away.

"Whatever," Mai spoke after a pause that seemed to span weeks in only a matter of seconds. "We came just to see how you were holding up, not that it matters so much anyway. We also felt we needed to let you know that your fate was decided by nothing but your own actions. Nobody is at fault but you."

"It was really hard, Azula," the acrobat whimpered after another frozen pause.

"How do you mean?" Mai asked casually after a matter of seconds.

"Watching Azula do what she did, and not being able to tell her it was wrong. So not fair! It was like you didn't care for anybody, Azula, besides yourself. You just didn't care! I couldn't believe what we were helping you do because we had to," Ty Lee spoke defiantly in a more agitated tone. Mai thought it would only be a matter of time until Ty Lee's pity was erased by bitter disappointment in their former friend, and the assassin nearly smiled beside herself. "My aura was totally becoming duller!"

Azula refused to remove her mask, halfway daring Ty Lee to keep attacking her. She wouldn't break down if that's what they wanted to see. Azula truly pitied them. They were so foolish, she believed. But the prodigy could not deny that the outburst made her heart ache, though just a little.

"I guess your mother was right, you are a monster, if what you said back on Ember Island is accurate," Mai blurted mercilessly. Ty Lee winced visibly, but remained composed. She nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Azula felt the strings of her dark heart grabbed, yanked, and nearly snapped. With the use of much effort did the princess keep herself from ravishing the noblewoman. Azula's eyes widened and burned with an intensity that matched her once searing flames.

A small crack formed on the concealing mask.

"You would have been more fortunate if you made people your friends, as opposed to your pawns," Mai scolded, frowning with sheer disappointment.

"Especially us," Ty Lee paused and looked downward, frowning as well. "We wanted to be your friends, Azula."

"But I guess you don't need anybody to care for you, or to care for yourself," Mai began again. "I suppose everyone was as beneath you as you let on. Maybe you are perfect." Mai smirked, her voice dripping with venom.

Every little attack now chipped away at the princess' mask, and she could not prevent it. Her scowl was reshaping itself slowly, into a frown, and again she could not prevent it. The anger in her eyes remained very much intact, although hurt and pain invited themselves into the comfort of her golden orbs. She could not begin to fathom how such pathetic traitors were bringing her this much discomfort. How far had she fallen?

"Your aura used to be so big, so bright," Ty Lee interrupted the berating. "It was beautiful. So confident and powerful," here the acrobat paused to look at her broken former friend. And then with sorrow but without guilt, "now it's just an ugly dark red color, and black in spots here and there."

Azula felt her vision become blurry as the fluids that threatened to betray her mask filled her eyes. She had not pitied herself until her the two had shown to her just how far, how hard she had fallen. She felt a sob form in the bottom of her throat, but she did not dare to give it life. Rather, she attempted to maintain her look of pure vile distaste as best as she could. But she felt the mask beginning to slip off, slowly but surely.

"Well, I guess if you've got nothing to say, we'll be on our way," Mai summed up, though she made no move to make her leave from the dark, dingy cell. Azula did not give the two friends any indication of whether she desired their company anymore or not.

But she did not want them to leave, she realized. She feared she would never again see another human face without a helmet for the rest of her pitiful existence. Her eyes visibly glistened now and she felt ready to burst. Her lips began to slightly quiver and shake. Fortunately, the slight darkness of the cell made it near impossible for such dismissive details to be detected. The deteriorating mask she bore concealed the implications that Azula longed for any kind of company from the assassin and the acrobat.

"Well, I guess we'll be going. Good bye, Azula." Ty Lee whispered sadly. She truly felt disappointed and even a bit angry at her fallen friend, but pity and sorrow were present for her as well, but not near as strongly as the former.

"Come, Ty Lee, let's go." Mai suggested, making her way out with her acrobatic friend walking a few paces ahead of her. The emotionless girl placed a hand on her bubbly friend's shoulder for comfort. Azula envied Ty Lee for it; she needed the comfort.

"Bye, Azula! May the spirits have mercy on you." Ty Lee whispered the last sentence, unsure of how strongly she felt for that matter.

"Alright then, princess," Mai sighed with a hint of sarcasm, her back to Azula. "I suppose this is farewell. Maybe somebody else will visit you someday, maybe not. It doesn't matter; you don't deserve it. Nor do you need anybody else anyway."

A tear escaped Azula's eye, but there was no witness. She meant to call them back, to stay with her, but no word formed past her dry, shaking lips.

"You never did." And there shattered the mask Azula had donned so well, breaking into a mess of tears and sobs that were initially inaudible.

"Enough Mai," Ty Lee pleaded to her friend as they walked out of the small room. The cell door was just about to close when the two friends heard the most shocking of noises the world had to offer, the cries of the devil.

Ty Lee stuttered with her step, and the assassin thought her friend would consider turning around. But Mai unemotionally urged Ty Lee on with the hand that rested upon the acrobat's shoulder, and the smaller girl wordlessly obliged. The two made their way out of the cell, and Azula knew she would never see them again after the metallic click of the door that decided her fate.

"You're wrong!" The princess wailed and sobbed into the empty room as if her soul was being wretched from her destroyed body. "I need someone…I need _you_! Don't leave me!"

Doomed forever to spend the rest of eternity with nothing to accompany her besides her vulnerable, wall-shattering screams and cries, the fallen princess destroyed herself, and not a single soul on the planet was stirred.

**End**

I really wanted to write a prison visit scene with Azula and her former friends, and I also wanted to try my hand at some kind of angst. Eventually I decided on combining the two ideas, and came up with this. xD

This isn't necessarily how I feel about Azula, by the way.

Thoughts, comments, and criticisms are appreciated, so feel free to hit the review button. You don't have to be logged in to do so.

And with that, I'll see you people later!


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